Thanks a bunch. Most the guys I knew are either retired, out of it or even dead. I first started for a few years over in Spokane, there were only 4 of us counting the owner. They did mostly commercial maintenance/ repair and when I arrived, they had gotten themselves into lumber kilns. They had built one, which I never saw, then while I was there we built I think 5 or 6, hard to remember. Two were Micom screw shaft drive 60hp, two were Carrier 80hp V8 shaft drive, what 5H-80 or something? Seems like we did one with a 12hp and one was either 40 or60 hp Carrier recip. All these were used compressors which we rebuilt in the shop.
All three of the guys in that shop are gone now except me, and I'm 76
Then I came to Coeur d Alene, where I live, and worked for one of the local Lennox dealers, just in time for the rise and fall of the Pulse. The boss is till kickin, his son now owns it. He is one of the few guys I still know, anymore. That, too was a rather small outfit that varied from about 5-6 of us to about 8 or 10. Installers "I'm sure you know" come and go. We had installers who came to work and didn't last A DAY. We installed a few rooftop units but most our sales was residential forced air. We did install just one boiler / pool heater that was used to heat a driveway.
I used to service nat gas/ LP/ electric furnace/ heat pumps and oil (gun) burners. No baseboard, radiant or oil stoves, although we removed a few of those.
The boss and his son were really sheet metal guys, and both are excellent. The son worked up on the Alaska pipeline for awhile. He has done some custom copper and stainless such as range hoods and stainless galley tables, etc.
Here is one of my old vans when I first put it together. Boss bought it from a church. I built the bulkhead and shelves, and the ladder rack, pipe side bracket and vise worked like a hitch receiver. I could "plug" a pipe or bench vise into the mount. A mighty slanty for power!!
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